Admittedly, the time frame here is far earlier than the 12th or 13th centuries I’m used to exploring and writing about, but yesterday’s piece in Huffington was just too good to pass up here for those of you who missed it on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and every other social media outlet on the planet. This said, once again a flurry of active speculation amongst archaeological and religious academics pitted against the faithful is sure to escalate. As I’ve commented earlier, it seems that we’ve entered an era of, to borrow Hilary Mantel’s latest book title, ‘Bringing Up the Bodies‘(and everything with them), non-stop

Recent memory zooms to the controversy over remains now concluded to be England’s diabolical(depending on your point of view) King Richard the III. This excavation was closely followed by discovery of remains speculated to be those of England’s more venerated king, Alfred of Wessex(the jury’s still out on this one as far as I know.) Nevertheless, the contemplation of ‘what if’ continues to intrigue us. However, it’s important to keep in mind that discovery of and hawking of, ‘authentic relics’ which are nothing more than fakes is big business that’s older than Methuselah that continues to flourish around the globe.

Still, every time such events are splashed across the media, many of us yearn in hope beyond hope that the real deal has been discovered…it does happen. As for the current ‘discovery’ at hand, we’ll just have to wait…but who knows? There are so many treasure ‘truths’ waiting to yet be discovered and questions answered…Excalibur, the Grail, the mystical portal protected by the Sphinx, Nazca, Atlantis, Avalon, the pyramids, Stonehenge …

In the meantime we can muse on the latest news from Huffington, et al:

“Archaeologists working in Turkey believe they have found a piece of the cross that Jesus was crucified on.

While excavating the ancient Balatlar Church, a seventh-century building in Sinop, Turkey, on the shores of the Black Sea, they uncovered a stone chest that contained objects that may be directly connected with Jesus Christ.

Excavation head Professor Gülgün Köroğlu definitively stated:

We have found a holy thing in a chest. It is a piece of a cross, and we think it was [part of the cross on which Jesus was crucified]. This stone chest is very important to us. It has a history and is the most important artifact we have unearthed so far.

The stone chest has been taken to a laboratory for further testing. However, the appearance of the chest suggests that it was a repository for the relics of a holy person, according to the team, who showed reporters at the site a stone with crosses carved into it.

Many churches claim to possess relics of the so-called “true cross,” though the authenticity of the items is not fully accepted by scholars and scientists. Protestant theologian John Calvin noted that, “if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load,” referring specifically to the cross. On the other hand, the 19th-century French archaeologist Charles Rohault de Fleury supposedly said that all of the cataloged relics would only make up less than a third of the mass of a roughly 12-foot-high cross.

But what originally happened to Jesus’ cross, and why has it turned up now? Legend says that Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, found the cross in Jerusalem and distributed pieces of the wood to religious leaders in Jerusalem, Rome, and Constantinople.

Balatlar Church, built in 660, has proved an especially rich dig site, as Köroğlu mentioned that in addition to the stone chest, her team has found the ruins of an ancient Roman bath and more than 1,000 human skeletons since they started working in 2009.”

Approximately a year ago, archeological researchers from Oxford discovered remains of one of Furness Abbey’smedieval abbots. Furness, founded in 1124 by King Stephen. Located in northern Cumbria, it was the second largest, wealthiest and obviously influential, abbey in the country prior to the dissolution rampage of King Henry VIII. The following is an excerpt of a report of the find filed by Fatima Manji with Britain’s Channel 4 News:

The skeleton was found by Oxford Archaeology North who were carrying out excavations during emergency repairs at the Cumbrian site. The rare find could date as far back as the 12th century. The abbot’s body was buried with a very rare medieval gilded crosier and jeweled ring. [According to] English Heritage curator Susan Harrison, “This is really significant because it’s the first time under modern conditions that an abbatial or abbot burial has been discovered intact with so much detail and information – from the skeleton to the mark of his office, his crosier, his ring, but also fragments of textile in there.”

Oxford Archaeology North’s Stephen Rowland[stated], “It’s extremely rare to find such a burial. Nationally he’s an important person; he’s a member of the Cistercian order which was the most powerful monastic order in England. He would have had estates across the Furness Peninsula, into Cambria, Lancashire and Yorkshire, control over large amounts of resources. He was a bit like a feudal overlord.”

The archaeologists are now carrying out carbon 14 dating to find out when the abbot actually died. The results of this could give them a 25 year window, which may help to identify which abbot he was. However, the window could be as much as 100 years either side of his actual death. Ms Harrison explained how the burial was found: “It was noted that the walls of the east end of the church were cracking and subsiding. A major investigation was set up by English Heritage to work out what was happening with these walls and then to try and reduce any impact on the ground. Archaeological work was undertaken to enable us to find out what was significant in the area that we were going to do further works on to stabilise the abbey ruins.”

Mr Rowland explained what they already know about the abbot. He said: “We think he’s about 40 to 50-years-old which we can tell from the wear on his teeth, the way the bones are fused together and the sutures on the skull and the aspects on the pelvis. He’s about 5’7 tall by measuring his leg bones and he would have been a very important person in the abbey.” He said the abbot probably suffered from arthritis and was most likely a portly man. He said: “He’s got a bony growth going down his vertebrae. It’s a condition called DISH, which is associated with obesity and middle-aged onset type-2 diabetes. So it’s quite probable that he was having a fairly rich diet. The abbot’s knees were also worn.” Mr Rowland added: “He could have been praying quite a bit on his knees. We’ve got arthritis around his platella on his knee cap – again this signifies more bony growth. He could have spent a bit of time on his knees writing and reading quite a lot, but he wasn’t hugely active like other medieval people of lower status really.”

Ms Harrison said the ring was probably a reminder of piety: “It tells us he was a man of status to wear a ring. It was found on one of the fingers of his right hand and what’s really interesting is that it’s a copper alloy but it’s been gilded and it’s got a point behind – can you imagine how uncomfortable it would have been to wear that? It’s possibly as a reminder of his piety, a reminder of his position and his oaths to god.”

The head of the crosier is made of gilded copper and decorated with gilded silver medallions showing the Archangel Michael defeating a dragon. The crosier’s crook or end is decorated with a serpent’s head. Ms Harrison added: “This abbot was obviously of high status because he was buried with a very nice crosier, rather than a wooden or a lead replica of that. It’s in good condition. The only damage is caused by corrosion in the ground.”

Mortuary Chests Such As This One in Winchester’s Cathedral Were Often Used To Hold Ecclesiastical Remains

Last week archaeological authorities in England’s north announced that indeed, the skeleton found last summer underneath a municipal car park in Leicester is that of the notoriousKing Richard III. Now on the heels of this discovery, a team of archaeologists from the University of Winchester down in England’s southern Hampshire are hoping to discover the bones of Saxon England’s 9th century King, Alfred of Wessex believed to be buried in St. Bartholomew church in Hyde, located a little north of Winchester.

The saga of Alfred’s tomb is a complex one with enough twists and turns of which medieval mystery writers dream. According to various resources, Alfred was originally although temporarily, buried in Winchester’s old minster upon his death on October 26, 899 AD. However, about 903 AD, a new minster was built and consecrated next door and at that point, Alfred’s remains were moved to the New Minster; but this move proved to be another temporary one.

Roughly about 1109 AD, King Henry I ordered the New Mister to be moved north of the city to the suburb of Hyde Mead. When the new ‘abbey church’ of Hyde was consecrated in 1110 AD, the bodies of Alfred, his wife Ealhswith and his son Edward the Edler, were interred before the high altar…until Henry VIII’s rampage against the monasteries and abbeys in 1539.

Amazingly, although the abbey church was demolished by Henry’s enforcers, the graves of several royals were left intact only to be accidentally discovered in 1788 during the construction of a prison on the old abbey site. As often happened in such instances, the tombs were robbed, the bones scattered. One of the stories that continues to persist is that a vicar ‘bought’ Alfred’s bones, although from an ‘unreliable’ source, and moved them to St. Bartholomew. Anything is possible of course; the bones could be Alfred’s, although the sale of suspect ‘relics and artifacts’ is a practice that dates back thousands of years and remains so today…often under the guise of ‘lost’ art that turns out to be expertly forged!

If permission for the excavation is given, radio carbon dating will be used to determine the bones authenticity and if it’s proven that they are the bones of England’s greatest king, experts agree that this would be one of the most significant archaeological discoveries ever made. Stay tuned!

Several archaeological projects with the potential of revealing answers to some of England’s medieval mysteries have been in the news and are worth mentioning here for my fellow medieval history buffs and writers.

Earlier this fall I posted a piece on medieval mortuary chestsand the project I witnessed that’s underway in Winchester Cathedral. As I posted, this project is focusing on assigning specific identities to the bones of Wessex’s early monarchs and bishops; remains that were carelessly ‘dumped’ into assorted chests by Oliver Cromwell’s troops. No easy feat for present day archaeological detectives!

As this project proceeds, up north in Leicester a major ‘accidental’ discovery hit the news just as I was returning from England in mid September. In late August, while working on a dig under a city car park, workers discovered skeletal remains with spinal abnormalities and a “cleaved-in skull.” Archaeological authorities called in from Leicester University ‘suggest’ these remains could be those of King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings, who died in 1485 during the battle of Bosworth, England’s last of significance, in its ‘War of the Roses’.

Prior to his demise at Bosworth, Richard’s climb to the throne is a story full of complexities, family rivalries, evil doings and political maneuverings, not the least of which are suspicions that he ordered the murder of his two young nephews in the Tower, thus eliminating any rival claims to the throne.

As a defeated enemy of Henry Tudor, founder of the Tudor dynasty, Richard was given a low-key burial in the Franciscan friary of Greyfriars. Although demolished in the 1530’s, there’s evidence that his burial site survived. If DNA testing against descendants of Richard’s family confirm the current archaeological theories, this would be a remarkable discovery. Additional controversy has also surfaced regarding a suitable burial place for the remains, should they be Richard’s. Earlier this week after various news reports concerning this issue, it was revealed that should speculations be confirmed, Richard’s remains would be interred in Leicester’s cathedral…but that was this week. We shall see.

And, although not as recent as the discoveries in Winchester and Leicester, there’s more. In 2005 the London press reported that along with the discovery of 13th and 14th century royal tombs, work using radar in London’s Westminster Cathedral, pinpointed the original tomb of King Edward the Confessor, one of the most revered of British saints and one of the last Saxon kings, who died months before the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Until this discovery it was assumed that Edward’s tomb was placed near Westminster’s current high altar as implied in medieval records. However, further research revealed this was not the case. In 1269, King Henry III had a shrine built to honor and contain Edward’s remains. He also had the altar moved and with it, Edward’s tomb which he had placed it under the shrine. Today, the shrine rests approximately ten feet behind the present high altar. Edward as a king does not hold a high place in history as some of his more famous peers, but nevertheless, his presence has endured. Although made long after his death, the main royal crown is called St. Edward’s Crown and the Coronation Chair is sometimes called St Edward’s chair.

His family was of the Wessex dynasty and when his half brother, Hardecanute, died in 1042, Edward was named king. He was then succeeded by Harold, killed in the Battle of Hastings, which then ushered in the reign of William the Conqueror and the Normans. After Hastings, Edward’s reputation for piety grew…Pope Alexander III canonized him in 1161 and for four hundred years he was considered the patron saint of England until 1415 when this status was replaced by St. George.

Happily the advent of 21st century technology is allowing us fascinating peeps into the ancient past with the prospect of solving mysteries that have mystified many of us for years!

Inquiring minds want to know: what is your favorite medieval legend that remains unsolved? Is it Arthur, the ‘Princes in the Tower’ or perhaps…???

Floor Plan of Westminster Abbey and Edward the Confessor’s Tomb and Shrine

Throughout Europe in the tenth century, almshouses, particularly in Great Britain emerged as centers which provided charitable housing based on Christian values for those struggling in dire poverty. Although the religious aspect is less important today than it was in the Middle Ages, many have survived and among them is Britain’s oldest alms house, St. Cross. Founded in 1132 by Winchester’s BishopHenry de Blois, St. Cross remains active today and can be visited throughout the year should you happen to find yourself in Winchester. Nearly 900 years old, this historical institution has a fascinating history that is well worth exploring.

At the time of the hospital’s founding,( the early meaning of hospital being nearer to a hotel for our modern understanding) Winchester was very important as an ecclesiastical center as was its Bishop. In addition to being a papal legate, Henry also enjoyed the benefit of royal connections. He was a grandson of William the Conqueror and nephew to William’s heir, King Henry I. In his youth, the Bishop began his ecclesiastical career as a Cluniac monk at the famous abbey in France. And, it was at Cluny that the lesson of public charity was instilled in him. However, along with this lesson, Henry retained his pride and ambition making him a very busy young man.

The future Bishop was first brought to England by King Henry to take up the position as Abbot of powerful Glastonbury Abbey. Despite the relatively young age of 26, he was then made Bishop of the important ecclesiastical center of Winchester. However, this wasn’t enough, evidently. Henry believed he should be made an Archbishop and thus pursued this ambition by moving to raise Winchester to the status of an Archdiocese. In order to achieve this, Henry knew he needed to do something that would make his ecclesiastical administration more important than it already was.

Remembering the lessons of charity no doubt drilled into him during his tenure at Cluny, Henry decided that the founding of an almshouse was in order. However such founding couldn’t be just any almshouse, it needed to be one of considerable size and importance. By 12th century standards, Henry was a very wealthy man and so at first used his own resources to embark on his mission. As to the recipients of charity, Henry was quite clear in his mind. They would be thirteen poor men (commemorating Jesus and the twelve disciples, most likely) who were so reduced in circumstances and strength they couldn’t fend for themselves. (Note not surprisingly, that women were not mentioned!)

Inmates were to be given clothing, beds fit for their ‘infirmities’, a ‘daily good loaf of wheaten bread of the weight of five measures’(approximately 2¾ pound by today’s standards), three dishes at dinner and one for supper. In addition, they were to have the equivalent of approximately three quarts of good beer! Who would want to leave these environs? Nevertheless, should any of the ‘brethren’ recover they were to be dismissed with honor to make room for a deserving replacement. In addition to the thirteen men looked after in St. John’s, Henry also provided for an additional 100 who lived outside of the almshouse.

St. John’s has such a rich history of tradition, not to mention historical value to be found in its physical architecture that there may be more to come in future posts!

Examples of the modern cup and plate used in the ancient tradition(still maintained)

of the Wayfarer’s Dole which consists of a small cup of ale and a piece of bread.